Judy Fahys

Reporter

Judy Fahys

Austen Diamond Photography

Judy Fahys has reported in Utah for two decades, covering politics, government and business before taking on environmental issues. She loves covering Utah, where petroleum-pipeline spills, the nation’s radioactive legacy and other types of pollution provide endless fodder for stories. Previously, she worked for the Salt Lake Tribune in Utah, and reported on the nation’s capital for States News Service and the Scripps League newspaper chain. She is a longtime member of the Society of Environmental Journalists and Investigative Reporters and Editors. She also spent an academic year as a research fellow in the Knight Science Journalism program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In her spare time, she enjoys being out in the environment, especially hiking, gardening and watercolor painting.

Ways to Connect

Medical help can be hours away for overdose victims in the rural Mountain West. That’s one reason why it’s been so important for Utah and neighboring states to allow pharmacies to dispense the antidote, naloxone.

President Donald Trump is considering easing restrictions so that teachers can be armed to prevent school shootings. It’s a idea that already has traction in several Mountain West states, including Utah.

A fierce debate is taking place across the country right now: What to do about immigrants who came here illegally as children. Up until recently, they qualified for a program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which protects them from deportation. But the Trump administration rescinded that Obama-era rule and Congress is debating what will take its place.

We talked to three people affected by that debate right here in the Mountain West.

Utah lawmakers seem ready to waive the fee for inspecting EnergySolutions radioactive landfill. A bill to do that — at the top of the list of legislation that Senators could vote on this week — would have taxpayers covering inspection fees for one of the state’s most generous campaign donors, EnergySolutions.

High-school students have been pushing Utah lawmakers for climate action in Utah for more than a year. And, on Thursday, a legislative panel voted to advance a climate-change resolution they helped to draft.

It sounded sometimes like Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful, was teaching a Climate Change 101 workshop on Tuesday. He asked members of the House Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environment Committee to focus on a few trends.

Utah homeowners and industry have been looking for a way for years to make rooftop solar costs more predictable. Lawmakers are advancing legislation that provides stability that balances the impacts of a rapidly growing industry.

Utah lawmakers have been pushing agencies to rely more and more on user fees instead of taxes. They say it’s only fair. But a bill backed by a Salt Lake City radioactive waste company would reverse that policy, shifting the cost of companies’ user fees to taxpayers.

Black Diamond founder Peter Metcalf helped make Utah a hub for outdoor-recreation businesses and lured the industry’s big trade show to Salt Lake City. This year, the trade show’s relocated to Colorado where public-lands politics are more in line with the industry’s.

What if the fighting over public lands in San Juan County stopped and people started talking about solutions to conserve the land? That was a proposition floated at a hearing of the U.S. House Federal Lands Subcommittee yesterday.